We are happy to be selected at the tenth anniversary edition of ZagrebDox which will take place from 23 February to 2 March at Zagreb’s Cineplexx Kaptol Centre theatre. A rich festival line-up once again this year presents over 150 documentary stories from all four corners of the world.

ZagrebDox is celebrating an anniversary. For the tenth year in a row it has been acquainting the local audience with recent world documentaries, offering an exclusive chance to see the titles the local theatre listings avoid. In the past nine years ZagrebDox screened over 1300 documentaries, seen by 174 thousand people. The popularity of this film genre keeps growing by the year, largely thanks to ZagrebDox. In the past decade documentaries have become interesting to a wider range of viewers as video-documents of reality.

The tenth anniversary edition of ZagrebDox takes place from 23 February to 2 March at Zagreb’s Cineplexx Kaptol Centre theatre. A rich festival line-up once again this year presents over 150 documentary stories from all four corners of the world. In addition to the international and regional competition, including numerous films from Mostra, Sundance, Hot Docs, IDFA, unusual stories will be presented in our popular official programmes: Controversial Dox, State of Affairs, Happy Dox, Masters of Dox, Musical Globe, Teen Dox and Biography Dox.

Like in the previous years, the side programme includes many retrospectives. For instance, the anniversary section named My Best Dox will present the finest documentaries screened at ZagrebDox to the choice of local film critics and documentarians, and the ZagrebDox Pro Retrospective comprises successful documentaries launched within this festival section intended for filmmakers. The tenth ZagrebDox will also host a retrospective of the Polish Wajda school and an author’s night of the Croatian director Damir Čučić.

One mention-worthy title from the international competition is the American Blood Brother which has won a respectable number of merits at festivals across the world in the recent months – including a jury award and an audience award at Sundance Film Festival, audience awards at Hot Docs and Atlanta and Thessaloniki film festivals. This shocking tale is a portrayal of a young American called Rocky who made a radical decision: he left his family, friends and life and moved to India, to work in an institution for children with AIDS. The Dutch documentary Song from the Forest by Michael Obert will also be presented in the international competition. In another story about fleeing the western civilisation to embrace Third World countries, American Louis Sarno decided to follow the sounds of a song he heard on the radio 25 years ago, which led him to the Central African rainforests, to the Pygmy tribe of Bayaka. He remained there until this day, when he wanted to show his son the world he caem from. The two of them embark on another trip, to another jungle, to New York City. At IDFA, Obert won the category of the best feature-length documentary.

An interesting and strong regional competition is led by the successful Italian film Sacro Gra by Gianfranco Rosi, the winner of Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion last autumn. In an unprecedented situation, this was the first time in the history of Mostra that a documentary film garnered the main award. Sacro Gra is a poetic portrayal of the people living by the Roman Gra bypass. Croatian filmmakers this year again recognised ZagrebDox as the most powerful platform for the international promotion of their work, so among the thirty Croatian films about a dozen will be premiering.

Also, ZagrebDox again organises a rich educational programme for film professionals, ZagrebDox Pro, whose aim is to stimulate collaboration in southeast Europe and enable encounters and recognition on the global, European, regional and local documentary filmmaking scene.